1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to controlling data transmission/receiving of a group management system of an elevator, and in particular to an improved apparatus for controlling data transmitting/receiving of the group management system of the elevator and a method using the same, capable of integrating data which are transmitted/received to/from a group management controller and a hall controller, and transmitting the integrated data at a time, thereby decreasing a communication load factor.
2. Description of the Conventional Art
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a conventional apparatus for controlling data transmitting/receiving of a group management system of an elevator.
As shown therein, the conventional apparatus includes: a plurality of cages 2A-2K; a group management controller 1 for managing and controlling the operation of the cages 2A-2K; a plurality of hall controllers 4A-4N and 5A-5N for controlling buttons and lamps of each hall; first and second amplifiers 3A and 3B for amplifying data outputted from the hall controllers 4A-4N and 5A-5N, and transmitting the amplified data to the group management controller 1 or the plurality of cages 2A-2K through a main network NETm. The hall controllers 4A-4N which are connected with the first amplifier 3A include a first hall line 4, and the hall controllers 5A-5N which are connected with the second amplifier 3B include a second hall line 5.
The operation of the conventional apparatus for controlling data transmitting/receiving of the group management system of the elevator will be described.
The group management controller 1 synthetically manages the operation of the plurality of cages 2A-2K, and when a hall call is generated in the hall (not illustrated), the group management controller 1 decides which cage among the cages 2A-2K is in the best state for servicing on the basis of an information of the operation of the cage in accordance with the hall call, then selects, and operates the corresponding cage.
A data according to a hall call which is generated in the first hall line 4 is amplified at a predetermined level by a first amplifier 3A, and a data which is generated in the second hall line 5 is amplified at a predetermined level by a second amplifier 3B. The data which are amplified by the first and second amplifiers 3A and 3B are transmitted to the group management controller 1 or the cages 2A-2K through the main network NETm. Here, the main network NETm is connected with the group management controller 1 and the cages 2A-2K for a data communication. When data receiving/transmitting is performed through the main network NETm, the number of a node of the main network NETm which leads the data communication in a certain cycle is determined by "the number of the group management controller+the number of the cage+the number of the hall controller".
Namely, that is the maximum number of the node which affects the communication of the main network NETm in the certain cycle.
For example, when the numbers of the group management controller, the cages, the hall lines, and the floor where the cages are operating are 1, 4, 3, and 64, respectively, the number of the nodes which may use the main network NETm are 1+4+(3*64)=197. Here, if an extra group management controller for backing up the operation is added, the number of the nodes is 198.
If an extra hall line having a plurality of hall controllers is added, the number of the nodes are 2+4+(3*64)=198+64=262.
As described above, the main factors which affects the number of the nodes are the number of the hall lines (3) and the number of the floors that the cages are operating (64). However, the number of the group management controllers and the number of the cages do not have an important effect on the number of the nodes.
Accordingly, in the conventional apparatus for controlling data transmitting/receiving of a group management system of an elevator, if a great number of nodes are simultaneously used in a certain cycle when the data transmitting/receiving is carried out via the main network NETm, the communication load factor of the main network is considerably increased, therefore the data communication is erroneously occurred and a system reliability is deteriorated.
Also, in order to decrease the communication load factor, the number of the hall lines and the number of the floors that the cages are operating should be limited.